Welcome - my name is Kevin Klinkenberg, and this site "The Messy City" is my blog and company website. I started blogging on urban planning and design issues in 2007, and began working in the field in 1993. Please feel free to connect with me on any of the social media sites listed here. Thanks for reading.

Mar 19 Walking makes us happy

Chris Bruntlett writes about some of the simple joys of living in a walkable neighborhood in Vancouver:

Perhaps most significantly, living smaller and closer has lead to a tremendous simplification of our lives, where our day-to-day existence is marked with very little stress or complication. Less time wasted commuting long distances (and also less time working to pay for it) ultimately means we can spend more time connecting and contributing to our community. It affords me time to devote to the world of bicycle promotion, through writing, photography, speaking and filmmaking. And it allows my wife to blog about our adventures, inspiring a global audience with stories of our car-free life.

Best of all, this shift has lead to plenty of quality time spent together as a family. We sit down for dinner almost every single night of the week. Walking, cycling, or riding the bus provides ample opportunity to hold hands, make eye contact, and chat about any number of issues, big or small. Having few debts or extraneous expenses allows us to put our money towards more worthwhile experiences: the aforementioned Christmas vacation, for example, or an afternoon at BC Place cheering on the Whitecaps.

Those of us in the planning/design world simply don't talk about these human qualities enough. We'll write endless books about the environmental virtues of city living or the details of how to design a bike lane, but very little about the joys of it. The late, great Ray Bradbury wrote about such things very well - his little book of short stories called Yestermorrow: Obvious Answers to Impossible Future has a number of odes to city life. Here's a brief one:

In Paris, with miserable weather, in thousands of outdoor drinking and eating places, the generations gather to talk and stare… which is what life is all about. Gathering and staring is one of the great pastimes in the countries of the world.

And, a shameless plug for Why I Walk, my book, which also gets into some of the same subject matter.

For many planners and designers, this book will challenge your thinking. Glaeser is an economist, and approaches issues of cities first and foremost from that standpoint. I found it very enlightening in many aspects (especially for global cities that I'm less familiar with) and would highly recommend the book. Glaeser makes a great case for the economic importance of cities, and also for more market-based approaches to planning for development.

Never Miss a Post Again

Email Address

Thank you for signing up. My goal is to add value to your time and efforts with this site. If I’m not meeting those expectations, please let me know.

Kevin

House plans from 180 Urban Design and Architecture - now available at Allison Ramsey Architects. Click here to see the portfolio and purchase.